


prodigal daughter

by nicole_writes



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Fire Emblem Magic but it's a lot looser, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Golden Deer Route, Lysithea has been through a lot, Lysithea von Ordelia Character Study, Pre-Timeskip | Academy Phase (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), someone hug this poor child
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:14:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26107780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nicole_writes/pseuds/nicole_writes
Summary: She’ll die young, the whispers say.No point in sticking around now. There’s nothing left to do with her,the shadows sneer.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic & Lysithea von Ordelia, Catherine & Lysithea von Ordelia, Cyril & Lysithea von Ordelia, Hilda Valentine Goneril & Lysithea von Ordelia, Linhardt von Hevring & Lysithea von Ordelia, Linhardt von Hevring/Lysithea von Ordelia, Lysithea von Ordelia & All Her Supports, Lysithea von Ordelia & Claude von Riegan, My Unit | Byleth & Lysithea von Ordelia
Comments: 20
Kudos: 40





	1. are you like me?

**Author's Note:**

> something that needled into my brain without shame. probably three parts? going off of my previous Sylvain study here, so bear with me. 
> 
> Someone needs to give this kid a hug.

Lysithea’s first real memories are of a man in a black, hooded robe. He grabs the boy next to her and hauls him into the beam of sunlight and arms tighten around Lysithea, sheltering her from what happens next. She’s young, maybe only four or five, but she can still hear the screams over the hands that her older sister tries to hold over her ears. This darkness and the damp stone around them has been everything she had known since she was two years old.

She is not the last one that the experiments are tried on, but she is the first that survives them. Her Crest of Gloucester manifests first when she grabs hold of one of the figures holding her down when she is just eight years old and burns a handprint into his arm as she screams and screams and screams. 

When they lock her up that night, she wraps her arms around her knees and closes her eyes. There are ghosts in this room: the ghosts of the siblings that have been torn screaming and fighting from the world through these ruthless, cruel experiments. She closes her hands over her ears and tries to block out the memory of the screams. 

Her magic warps the cell around her and blasts apart the bars and they leave her in a completely stone room next time. 

* * *

When she is ten, her black hair, once luscious and rich, turns to ash white and her eyes, previously dark violet, are pink and melanin-free in a matter of minutes. The mages exchange glances and secretive grins and Lysithea sets her hands on fire and screams. 

* * *

_She’ll die young_ , the whispers say. _No point in sticking around now. There’s nothing left to do with her,_ the shadows sneer. 

They dump her, white-haired, pink-eyed, back into her mother’s arms and her mother cradles her face and kisses her forehead, crying desperately as she is rocked back and forth. Lysithea can only feel the thrum of her newly acquired dual Crests in her veins as she rests her head against her mother’s shoulder and tries not to think about the burn of magic searing into her and the echoing wails and screams of her siblings as they died one by one. 

Even within the walls of Castle Ordelia, Lysithea sees the shadows of the ones who didn’t make it. Her older sisters pull at her hair in the wind and her brothers flip the edges of her skirts and poke her arms. 

So if the eleven-year-old daughter of Count Ordelia develops a fear of ghosts, none of the staff will say a word to her because she’s such a poor, unfortunate girl who watched all her siblings die in horrible, horrid ways. 

She’s eleven when she first casts a Dark Magic spell and the way that the magic curls and burns on her fingers feels familiar. She doesn’t go back to traditional magics. 

* * *

Lysithea is alone in the castle for a few years, studying magic and tactics and mathematics in her room, pushing off every offer of contact she receives. She will be better than her suffering, she swears to herself. She’ll be smarter and brighter in the time she has left because she knows what those mages had said about her: _she’ll die young, this one_.

She is fourteen when she decides that House Ordelia will end with her. The portraits of her dead siblings look down on her in the west wing of the castle and she catches whispers of her father and mother speaking in hushed tones in her father’s office one day. She presses herself against the wall and holds her breath, listening intently. 

“How will we continue?” her mother asks. “Can’t we just never tell her of everything that is going on? Can’t we just protect her?”

“We will have no choice but to pass the House to her eventually,” comes her father’s soft reply. “She’ll learn about Hrym and the Alliance and everything that has happened eventually.”

Her parents sound exhausted. Lysithea feels exhausted. This House of crumbling power structures caught between two larger foes will end with her, she decides. Nobility is a burden that neither she nor her parents need and so she will not hold onto it any longer than she needs to. 

It is a stepping stone to the Officer’s Academy, she has already decided, and after that, she will dissolve House Ordelia for good, Roundtable seat be damned.

* * *

The first thing Lysithea does at the Officer’s Academy is locate the library. It’s floor to ceiling books and several open tables and it’s everything she had dreamed it would be. She spends the first hour scouring the shelves for books on Dark Magic only to realize that the Church of Seiros doesn’t actively promote the learning of Dark Magic. 

She compromises by taking a Black Magic tome and studying up on some higher-level wind magic. She’s never been any good at wind magic herself, but it has always interested her. She’s a few chapters into the book when someone disturbs her. She snaps the book shut and is prepared to snap at whoever had just knocked into a table with a loud bang when she sees the culprit. 

It’s just a boy. A boy with tanned skin and dark hair and wide amber eyes that are locked on her and filled with surprise. Her shoulders slump and the irritation bleeds out of her. He looks younger than she does, which is a feat within itself, and entirely apologetic for having startled her. 

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “I didn’t know anyone would be up here yet. I just came to do some cleaning.”

She waves him off. “It’s fine.” She turns her eyes back to her book and flips another page. 

He is still staring at her after a moment and she turns to look at him, her eyes narrowing. He drops his gaze and rocks back on his heels, fidgeting with the broom he’s holding. 

“Sorry,” he apologizes again. “Are you Lysithea? Tomas has mentioned you before.”

She brushes a strand of her hair back. “Yes, that’s me.”

He nods shortly and turns like he’s about to walk away and she calls out to him purely instinctively. 

“Wait! You know who I am. Shouldn’t I know who you are?”

He gives her a skittish smile. “I’m Cyril.”

* * *

Claude von Riegan is absolutely mystifying and completely and entirely very, very irritating. He had apparently appeared out of nowhere one day to mysteriously claim his apparent birthright as the heir to House Riegan, the most influential house in the Leicester Alliance. People seem determined to doubt him, but the Crest of Riegan is more than enough to prove him as the rightful heir to House Riegan. 

He’s snarky and sneaky and Lysithea doesn’t like him. 

It doesn’t help that he spends the first three weeks of the school year pestering her about getting enough sleep and the fact that, apparently, she is staying up far too late studying for tests that are weeks away. 

It takes a few sharp glares and scowls and jabs at his own grades for him to finally admit that he had just noticed that she seems tired. Lysithea doesn’t know how to explain that she’s always tired, so she just shoves off his light teasing and tries to go back to work. 

Right up until, that is, he mentions there could be a ghost in the library. She definitely doesn’t tell Claude that she does her studying in the Knight’s Hall for an entire week after his comment because she’s _definitely_ not afraid of ghosts. 

* * *

Of course, just a day after she manages to get herself to return to the library for her studying, Claude, Edelgard, and Dimitri get into all sorts of trouble with bandits and end up enlisting the help of Jeralt Eisner, famed captain of the Knights of Seiros and his strange daughter, Byleth. 

And then, of course, Byleth is appointed as a professor in the Officer’s Academy and she chooses to lead the Golden Deer, no thanks due to Claude’s silver tongue with the way that he chats her up at every opportunity. 

The Professor is different from Hanneman and Manuela. She is quiet and patient and incredibly knowledgeable about battle tactics and practical subjects. She has a strange, unexplained affinity for Black Magic and a natural, unnurtured talent for White Magic. Lysithea can practically see the Crest energy that flows within her professor, but the woman seems completely oblivious to it. 

Instead, her magic affinity and sword prowess seems to come entirely of her own dedication and hard work. 

Through the mock battle, the professor demonstrates profound tactical prowess and Lysithea finds herself, for the first time, willing to take instruction and follow someone else’s lead without worrying about if it is the best decision for herself. 

Plus, she’s even nice enough to escort Lysithea to the dining hall and back to her dorm one night when she forgets her latest tome after dinner. It’s not like there are actually any ghosts around the monastery, but the looming shadows of large stone buildings make Lysithea more uncomfortable than she wants to admit, so the professor’s company is more than welcome. 

“Lysithea,” Byleth says when they reach the dormitories. 

Lysithea curls her fingers into the material of her jacket and inclines her chin, staring at her professor. “Yes?”

Byleth’s head tips to the side and there’s a deep emptiness in her blue eyes that unsettles Lysithea. Her tone of voice is gentle and compassionate, but it is true that Lysithea has not seen real emotion truly register on her professor’s face. 

“You did well today,” she says, talking about the Monk certification exam that Lysithea had aced. 

Lysithea nods. “Thank you.”

“Get some rest. You look tired,” Byleth continues. 

* * *

Before Lysithea can be offended at being called tired-looking, Byleth is sweeping away, disappearing into the dark of the night and Lysithea is left standing in her door, clutching a book to her chest as she frowns after her professor.

After they fight Lonato and the rebellion of the Western Church, they make camp. It’s too late to head back to the monastery as it is, so Catherine and the Knights pitch a camp large enough to house all the students and the knights that had come on the mission. 

Lysithea slumps down on a rock as the last of the tents goes up, her black spots dotting her vision. Her hands are black at the fingertips and still buzzing with the aftermath of all of the spells she had slung during the fight. Dark Magic feels _different_ from Black Magic. Black Magic comes from the world around you: elemental and raw, but Dark Magic comes from within. 

It’s straining and cold to the touch, but Lysithea has a mastery of it that she knows few fifteen years olds could even dream of. Still, she’s tapped after that fight, and the tingle in her fingertips tells her that she’s going to be tired for a while. It’s not often she pushes herself quite this hard. 

A hand reaches into her field of view and offers her a waterskin. Lysithea’s head snaps up and she stares at Catherine where the knight stands in front of her. Catherine has shed her armour, but her Relic is still tucked through her belt. She looks calm and relaxed and not at all like how she had at the end of the fight. 

Lysithea takes the waterskin and drinks from it, trying to force her hands not to tremble. Catherine, while she drinks, sits on the ground next to Lysithea, pulling her knees up and resting her arms against them. Lysithea pulls the flask back and hands it back to the knight who closes it with a click. 

Lysithea has only ever had a handful of conversations with the great Thunder Catherine, but they share a Crest and if anything, discovering that they do has meant that Catherine has been keeping a closer eye on Lysithea. Lysithea taps her heel on the ground, staring at the dirt, and kicks a small rock away from herself. 

“No rain today,” she says quietly. 

Catherine laughs. “I guess we need to keep testing our hypothesis then, don’t we.”

Lysithea smiles faintly. “I guess so.”

Catherine’s hand lands on Lysithea’s shoulder, warm and heavy, but it’s a gesture of comfort, not condescension. “You did well in the fog today,” she compliments. 

Lysithea straightens up. “Of course I did,” she snaps before she can hold herself back. The barbed response is instinct mostly, probably from a few too many days around Professor Hanneman.

Catherine just laughs at her. “Crest of Charon means you’re a tough kid, but it doesn’t excuse you from getting your hands looked at. Those spells you sling have some nasty kickback, don’t they?”

Lysithea looks at her fingertips. Sure enough, the very points of her fingers are tinged purple and bruised from the force of her spell and she curls her hands into fists to hide her injuries. She doesn’t particularly want to talk to Marianne after the harsh words Lysithea had accidentally exchanged with the timid healer. Even her attempt at an apology a few hours later hadn’t gone as expected. 

“I’ll be okay,” she excuses.

Catherine grabs her arm and pulls her to her feet. “Come on.”

Lysithea feels a bit coddled as Catherine guides her to the medical tent, her grip tight but not painful. Thankfully, Marianne is busy helping Hilda with some scrapes and bruises so Catherine instead leads her to another cot and shakes Linhardt awake from where he had been dozing nearby. 

Linhardt takes one look at Catherine and then redirects his attention to Lysithea. He still looks almost half asleep, but he doesn’t even have to ask what’s wrong with her. He extends his hands out and Lysithea cautiously places her hands in his. His fingers are cool and slender and unmarred by any scars: magical or otherwise. 

She has not spoken to Linhardt in over a week, despite his being around the Golden Deer classroom this month since the professor had asked for his assistance on missions. She is still preserving her tight-lipped silence regarding the origins of her Crests, no matter how much Linhardt tries to pry. 

Most days, her stubbornness wins out over his desire to be awake and energetic, but as he casts a light Heal spell on her bruised hands, she can’t really avoid the curious edge to his blue eyes so she just narrows her eyes and stares him down, tugging her hands free as soon as his spell fades. 

“Thank you,” she says shortly. 

Linhardt hesitates, but apparently Catherine’s lingering presence deters whatever question he had considered asking and he nods, turning away from her to return to his nap. 

* * *

Annette is the perfect study partner. She’s a mage, just like Lysithea, and though she’s a year older, they practice different arts and they both have the same hard-working attitude. Annette, while normally bubbly and too loud for Lysithea’s taste, is quiet when she studies and she takes beautiful notes. 

Lysithea is able to exchange her notes on combat and tactics from the professor with Annette so that she can see notes from some of Professor Hanneman’s more advanced magic seminars. 

It’s nice to be able to sit across the table from Annette in the library and just work through some harder magical theorems together. While Lysithea’s talent in Dark Magic has come from years and years of work, Annette’s gift with Black Magic came from being an honours student at the School of Sorcery in Fhirdiad, but neither of them is proficient with White Magic at the level that Marianne or Mercedes is. Sometimes, when they get bored with their own assignments, they’ll pour together over a tricky White Magic spell that Mercedes recommended to Annette. 

It’s an extra bonus when Annette brings cookies baked by Mercedes to share during their study sessions. 

Unfortunately, they do tend to get carried away sometimes, like tonight where Annette almost falls asleep against the book they’re looking at. Lysithea pokes the redhead in the cheek and Annette’s head snaps up and she blinks sleepily. 

“Oh gosh, I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” Annette says hurriedly and then she yawns. 

Lysithea mirrors her yawn out of instinct and then slaps a hand over her mouth. “I guess it’s pretty late,” she mutters. 

Annette stretches her arms above her head. She pushes out her chair and gathers up her books, muffling another yawn with her hand. She pauses when Lysithea doesn’t move and just looks at her. 

“Are you going to stay longer?”

Lysithea nods. She taps the page that they had been working on before Annette almost dozed off. “I really want to figure this out.”

Annette shudders. “Gosh, have fun. Warp is definitely beyond me right now.” 

She waves to Lysithea as she makes her way out of the library and Lysithea just sighs, pulling the book closer to her. She stares at the sigils and descriptions of the teleportation spell and tries to picture casting it. 

“Why can’t I get this?” she grumbles to the empty library. 

“It’s because you’re overthinking it,” comes a drowsy reply. 

She snaps her head to the side and sees Linhardt seated at the table in the corner. He’s almost completely hidden behind a stack of books on Crests and magic enchantments and his hair is a complete mess like he had actually genuinely been asleep. Knowing Linhardt, she wouldn’t doubt it if he had been. 

She curls her hand on the edge of the table and narrows her eyes at him. “Overthinking it? It’s a spell. That’s all mental.”

Linhardt yawns. “Yes and no,” he counters. “Dark Magic and Black Magic are a lot more book focused. You pull from the physical world for that kind of magic.” He waves his hand, drawing a half-hearted Physic run in the air in front of him. “White Magic is faith-based. It’s a lot more on your personal emotions about the situation.”

Lysithea blinks. It’s a true enough evaluation of Reason versus Faith. She had never thought about the abstract nature of Faith, but now that she considers it, Heal and Nosferatu do feel different than her Dark Magic spells do.

“Can you cast Warp?” she asks him before she can think better of it. 

He shakes his head. “Not yet,” he says plainly, but she knows that means it’s only a matter of time before he can. Linhardt may be lazy, but he is astoundingly proficient in Faith and Reason magics. 

She tabs the page with the spell and closes the tome, covering her mouth before she can yawn again. Linhardt just blinks slowly at her, almost like a cat, and she feels almost uncomfortable. 

“What?” she demands.

He shrugs. “You’ve been in and out of here all day. You were here with Cyril earlier and then with Annette and I swear I heard you and Claude arguing outside about something or other, right? That seems entirely too exhausting.” He yawns and nestles his head against his arms on the library table. 

She stands up and folds her arms. “And have you just been hiding here all day? Avoiding your classes?”

“Avoiding Edelgard and Ferdinand and Professor Manuela? Of course,” he replies like it’s the most obvious thing ever. He doesn’t even open his eyes when he says it. 

Lysithea can’t imagine hiding from her house leader. Mostly because she’s got this stupid need to outdo Claude, no matter how irritatingly smart he is. Besides, Lorenz would be the one to really not leave her alone, what with all his noble entitlement and insistence on talking about the future that she didn’t really have ahead of her. 

“In fact,” Linhardt continues sleepily. “I’ve been thinking of just asking Professor Byleth to change classes altogether. I’m much more suited to her style of teaching.”

Lysithea frowns. “Isn’t Manuela the White Magic specialist?”

Linhardt lifted his head and rubbed an eye, giving her an incredulous look. “Would you really like to be in the same classroom as Manuela and Dorothea?”

She doesn’t have a good response to that point. 

* * *

Lysithea has a nightmare the day after they return from Fraldarius territory. She wakes up in a cold sweat with half of her blankets and the pillow from her bed on the floor. She has scratched her own arms until she drew blood and it’s with a trembling hand that she draws the sigil for Heal and seals up her own wounds. 

She stares at the faint pink lines on the inside of her arms: scars that have joined dozens of other scars she doesn’t even know how to begin to explain to another person. She draws her knees to her chest and presses her forehead against them. She exhales shakily and tries to calm her rapid breathing. 

The monster still terrifies her. The bubbling black that had swallowed Sylvain’s brother and turned him into a monster nearly makes her sick to think about. All because of the Relic that he had tried to wield without a Crest. Because it always came back to Crests, didn’t it?

Her Crest of Gloucester had activated during the fight, adding a bit of extra punch to her magic attacks, but leaving her with bruised fingertips after the fact. Her fingertips are still warm now, hours and hours after her last spell had been cast. 

The monster is dead, but it’s dying scream is still echoing in her mind and all she can think about is the repeated, haunting screams that she had listened to for years in her childhood. The memory doesn’t appear to be going anywhere. 

She kicks aside the rest of her blankets and grabs a sweater from her desk chair, tugging it on. She pushes open her door and stares out at the grounds. The moon is high in the sky, peeking between clouds, but it is the open door to the greenhouse that actually catches her attention. She hesitates for a moment longer in her room before her sleeplessness and curiosity get the better of her. 

The door squeaks when she pushes it open and she winces, but the figure inside doesn’t appear disturbed by the noise. Lysithea is surprised to see Edelgard. The Adrestian Princess is sitting on the edge of one of the flower beds, staring down at a few sprouts and small flowers that have poked through the earth. 

She looks peaceful and reserved with her pale hair hanging around her face loosely. Lysithea almost leaves, afraid of disturbing her, but then Edelgard’s head lifts and they make eye contact. 

“Hello Lysithea,” Edelgard greets quietly. “What are you doing up?”

Lysithea frowns. “I could ask you the same question.”

Edelgard shrugs. “I’m troubled, I suppose,” she admits. “I heard what happened on your mission and it didn’t sit right with me.”

Lysithea wraps her arms around herself, tugging her sweater closed for warmth and as a poor defence mechanism. “It doesn’t sit right,” she admits. “I had a bad dream.” 

She feels like a small child when she admits to her nightmare, but there is no judgement in Edelgard’s face. It calls to memory the last time that she had a bad dream back when she was in the clutches of the mages who experimented on her and her sisters had held her to try and reassure her. 

Moonlight filters in through the greenhouse roof and turns Edelgard’s hair the same silver that Lysithea sees in the mirror every day. Lysithea’s breath catches in her chest as the wheels in her head turn desperately to reconcile the fleeting thought that crosses her mind. 

_Edelgard is like me_ , she thinks blindly. It’s a baseless thought, but she sees the same bone-deep weariness that plagues her, though not to the same extent, in the Adrestian Princess. 

“Lysithea? Are you alright?” Edelgard asks, turning so that she’s more clearly facing Lysithea.

Lysithea steps back reflexively. She curls her hands into fists and ignores the way that her nails dig into her palms as she nods. “I’m fine,” she lies. “It was just a dream. I should go back to sleep.”

She nearly escapes the greenhouse before Edelgard calls after her. 

“Lysithea, wait!” Lysithea turns and is caught off guard by the gentle expression that Edelgard wears. “Please, don’t hesitate to talk to me if you need to talk to someone."

* * *

The Golden Deer win the Battle of the Eagle and Lion, much to everyone’s delight. Linhardt transfers to their class followed closely by Caspar, to no one’s surprise. 

Lysithea has a couple of close calls, one of which literally results in Leonie carrying her back to her quarters after she overworked herself and left her fumbling for excuses that weren’t completely ridiculous. The kind look in Leonie’s eye makes her feel guilty for lying, but she still manages to spin it into a conversation about training somehow and thinks she manages to get Leonie to forget, or at least overlook, her fragility for the time being. 

She manages to make Ignatz feel even worse, if that’s even possible, and she yells at Lorenz too one day when he won’t leave her alone. Cyril is about the only person who Lysithea is able to hold a consistent and civil conversation with and that’s mostly because he just lets her talk about whatever she’s been studying about while he tidies around her in the library or in the classrooms. She feels a little guilty about it, but he says he likes to hear her talk, so she doesn’t bring it up again. 

* * *

Remire Village smells like blood and death and Lysithea burns her fingers badly as she overuses her magic. Her one salvation is when she reaches out to grab Raphael’s arm and trusts the swirling feeling in her stomach and draws the sigil for Warp. Blinding white light flashes and Raphael vanishes against her, appearing a hundred yards away next to the injured and surrounded Ignatz. 

She doesn’t even think about the fact that she had succeeded on the spell until Claude finds her after the battle. He’s bleeding from a gash on his face, but he looks impressed by her. 

“Was that a Warp spell?” he asks. 

Lysithea hides her hands away from his sharp gaze, refusing to let him see her bruised fingertips. “It was,” she says. Her ankle is throbbing faintly and her mind is still whirling at the events that have surrounded her. 

“That’s powerful White Magic, isn’t it?” Claude continues.

Lysithea nods and grabs Claude’s arm. “Hold still,” she says and quickly gives him a pop of White Magic with her Heal spell. She’s not a good healer, not like Marianne or Linhardt, but she at least has some affinity for magic, unlike her house leader. 

Claude nods to her. “Thank you.” 

He glances over his shoulder to where not-Tomas has disappeared after the battle had ended. The professor and her father, Captain Jeralt, had disappeared to sweep the surrounding area and put out any remaining fires around the edge of the village, leaving the Golden Deer to assist what villagers and refugees that they could. 

“Did you have any idea?” Claude asks her. 

She scowls. “No, of course, I didn’t.”

He winces. “Lysithea, don’t take this the wrong way. Your House did speak for Tomas and that was Dark Magic he used. It’s a reasonable question.”

She sighs. He has a point. It is reasonable to assume that she might have had the slightest idea about at least some of what was going on, but she didn’t. She can only picture Tomas, the kind librarian who had put up with her staying entirely too late in the library and she can picture Solon in the dark robes of mages that she had hoped to never see again. 

It nearly makes her sick to her stomach and she stumbles, feeling weak. 

“Woah!” Claude says, catching her arm. “You’re tapped, aren’t you? You should go rest with the others. The rest of us can finish up here.”

She wants to argue, but darkness is creeping at the very edges of her vision and her ears are ringing and her fingers are almost completely numb. She’s honestly not sure that she can walk back to the base camp, but as it turns out, Linhardt materializes out of nowhere, placing a hand on the arm that Claude isn’t holding. 

She blinks at the Adrestian mage, but he doesn’t say anything as he quietly supports her, walking her back to the base camp. Claude vanishes back into the chaos of the still-burning Remire Village and Lysithea focuses on putting one foot in front of the other and not falling on her face as they walk slowly back to the base camp. Hilda spots them coming and jogs over, frowning at what Lysithea can only assume she looks like, exhausted and dirty and bruised. 

“Are you two okay?”

Linhardt answers for her: “She overused her magic, but she’ll be okay. I’m just,” he makes a face, scrunching his nose, “not a fan of all the blood and guts stuff.”

Hilda nods. “I don’t think any of us are,” she replies. 

* * *

Lysithea is almost able to avoid going to the ball entirely. Unfortunately for her, Hilda is, surprisingly, on a warpath to make sure that the entire Golden Deer house is in attendance. Flayn is more than happy to help her, still riding the high of her victory in the White Heron Cup. 

So, Lysithea ends up sulking at the side of the hall during the ball. The one saving grace is that both Mercedes and Dedue had helped out in the kitchen to prepare a, quite frankly, ludicrous amount of sweets and treats, but Lysithea is definitely not going to tell anyone that she’s on her fourth slice of cake. Felix knows, probably, because he’s been shadowing Annette all night as she flutters from display to display. 

Just when she’s sure that she has spent an adequate amount of time socializing, she catches sight of Lorenz on the far side of the hall, scanning the room and she feels a strong instinct to hide. Thankfully, she is able to duck behind the nearest person who just so happens to be Sylvain who is both tall and broad enough to hide her. 

Sylvain and his conversation partner, Ingrid, both stare at her as she hides from Lorenz. 

“Hello Lysithea,” Sylvain greets breezily. “You look lovely.”

“Are you hiding from Lorenz?” Ingrid asks, sounding a bit disbelieving. 

Lysithea wrinkles her nose. “Yes. He’s probably going to try to make me dance to promote the noble standard of my house when really I’d rather just be in my room studying.”

Ingrid laughs lightly and peers around Sylvain. “Well, he’s roped Marianne into dancing with him somehow so I think you’re in the clear.”

Lysithea straightens up and steps away from Sylvain, leaving his shadow. “Right. Thanks.”

“Hey, hey,” Sylvain says before she can disappear. “You won’t even give me the opportunity to ask for a dance?”

She sighs, but Sylvain’s smile is annoyingly disarming, so she lets him put her out onto the dancefloor, their ridiculous height difference be damned. He spins her casually as he leads her through the steps of the dance. Lysithea is secretly glad for his own skill at the dance since she’s sure that she would have tripped without his guidance. 

“Since I’ve saved you from Lorenz,” Sylvain begins casually, “does this mean that you’ll show me a few magic tricks?”

She sighs. “Fine. I’m having tea with Annette tomorrow afternoon and you’re welcome to join us.” She steps on his toe and cringes, but Sylvain just turns into the step, unfazed. “But don’t be weird about it.”

He laughs. “I’ll be on my best behaviour, Professor Lysithea.”

* * *

Lysithea doesn’t recognize the spell that Solon uses to seal the professor away in a dark realm, but one minute she’s there and the next there is a rush of Dark Magic and she is long gone. Lysithea is pretty sure that the only reason Claude doesn’t shoot Solon immediately is because there might be a chance that he can bring the professor back. 

As it turns out, the professor doesn’t need rescuing and Lysithea is nearly blinded when she cuts herself free of the other realm, glowing. She drops the spell she had been holding in surprise and the magic fizzles at her fingertips. 

The professor is glowing, literally glowing, and her blue hair and eyes are as green as Flayn’s. 

Solon calls more dark-hooded mages and soldiers to his side and Lysithea’s anger bubbles up as her vision tunnels to the familiar dark robes and Dark Magic of the mysterious soldiers. There is not a doubt in her mind that these are the same people who were responsible for the death of her family members. 

She extends her hand and feels her feet lift off the ground and there is a blinding scorch of purple energy as the Hades spell, a Dark Magic spell she has never succeeded in casting before, arcs from her hands to Solon, who staggers under the force of her spell. Wind tears at her hair, but she holds her hand out, continuing the burning flare of magic until the other mage crumbles at the force of her might. 

Her feet return to the ground and she staggers as she stares down Solon, chin high and eyes narrowed. “Who dies first?” she snarls. “Because it certainly won’t be me.”

Claude’s arrow finishes the job before he can answer her and then her strength dissipates. She stumbles again and her vision tunnels and her ears ring and Raphael, who catches her, is the only reason she doesn’t collapse and crack her head on the ground. Lysithea clutches at Raphael’s arm to keep herself upright and stares down at the body of Solon. 

Her hands are burning and she feels like she’s ten years old again. The Crest of Gloucester flares in her and her blood sings. Slowly, she untangles her grip on Raphael’s arm and turns her back on the dead mage. 

She is stronger. She has proven this. 

* * *

When the Flame Emperor’s mask falls and Edelgard disappears in a flash of Dark Magic. Lysithea recognizes a twisted presentation of the usually Faith-based Warp spell. Her hands itch to try it, but most of all, she cannot get Edelgard’s face off of her mind. 

_You are like me_ , she thinks. _But you have chosen your path and I have chosen mine._

* * *

“Lysithea?”

She turns, placing down the heavy tome that she had been in the process of packing. Cyril is standing in her doorway, looking a bit uncertain. She brushes off her hands and smiles at him as best she can. 

“Hi, Cyril, can I help you with something?”

“No,” he says quickly. “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

She presses her lips together. Right. Goodbyes. That’s what has been going on all day since the end of the battle with the professor’s disappearance. 

“Are you leaving?” she asks. Part of her wants to invite him back to Ordelia territory, but there is hardly anything left for her, much less anyone she might bring back. 

He nods. “I’m going with Catherine, Shamir, and the other knights to look for Lady Rhea. We gotta find her.”

Lysithea smiles weakly. “Right. Well, good luck.”

He nods, giving her a boyish smile. He turns to leave, but hesitates, turning back to her. “Are you coming back here? In five years?”

Lysithea thinks about her classmates and the earnest, innocent promise that she had made. She thinks of the Crests that sing in her blood and wonders if she’ll even live to survive five more years. Then, anything had felt possible, but now it’s as if she has only hours left. 

“I hope so,” she replies. It’s not a promise, but it’s not a lie either. 

* * *

She makes one last trip to the library before she leaves and she’s not surprised to see Linhardt standing in the centre of the room, staring up at the ceiling, a frown on his face. She knocks on the doorframe of the library and he turns to her. 

“It’s not a private room,” he points out. “You didn’t have to knock.”

She frowns. “Courtesy,” she replies shortly. “Consider it that.”

He shrugs. “I suppose.”

“You’re going back to the Empire, aren’t you?”

He nods. “It is my home. And you’ll return to House Ordelia.”

She crosses her arms. “I will.”

Linhardt strides up to her and she lifts her chin to keep staring at his face. He’s hard to read on his best days, but today, he is downright blank-faced. It’s an expression that reminds her idly of the professor.

His eyes soften. “Take care, Lysithea. I would hate for this to be our last interaction.”

Her lips part in surprise at his genuine tone and sentimental words, but he gets the last word in when he leans in and presses a light kiss to her cheek so quickly she’s almost sure that she had imagined it. Then he’s breezing away from her in typical Linhardt fashion and she touches her cheek with bruised fingers. 

_It’s only five years. I’ve lived this long,_ she thinks. _Surely I can live a little longer._


	2. do i run or do i fight?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing is easy when living is hard. / five years of war.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> big thanks to liv for being my beta for this, esp when i was like "please read it today i want to post" and she just rolled with it like an absolute queen. 
> 
> this is a bit longer than i had intended for it to be, but apparently the Lysithea in me just jumps out at every opportunity...
> 
> Third part is going to take a lot more work and probably quite a bit longer due to length, content, and my own busy schedule, but you can follow me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/nicolewrites37) for updates and to see my other works!

The first three weeks of war are a mess. The Alliance Roundtable is called and Lysithea badgers her father until he agrees to let her accompany him to Derdriu. Surprisingly, Lorenz, Hilda and Marianne are all present as well. Claude shows them around the Riegan estate on the waterfront and brings them into his grandfather’s study where they can eavesdrop on the meeting. 

Lorenz tries to keep a straight face as Count Gloucester lays down his intentions but Lysithea can pick up on the irritation he smothers at his father’s brash and cocky words. While he once might have sided unapologetically with his father, Lorenz had grown during his time at the Academy. Lysithea wonders how much of his growth can be attributed to the fact that he has a somewhat contentious friendship with Claude that at least warrants some respect to the heir of House Riegan. 

Hilda’s father and brother staunchly lay down their Anti-Empire sentiments and Margrave Edmund, who is geographically the furthest point from the Empire, agrees. Marianne and Hilda join their hands upon their Houses’ declarations. 

Lysithea is not surprised that her father leans in favour of the Empire. She knows that he will never forget the result of her House’s interference in the Hrym uprising. He will never be able to live down what it meant to their House and how the Alliance failed them. She can see the regret on his face every time he looks at her and sees her hair colour. 

Claude is watching her intently. Lorenz seems too distracted with his own emotions to notice her own struggle, and neither Hilda nor Marianne seems particularly inclined to watch her, but Claude does. Lysithea figures that it’s a reasonable thing for him to do, as if any of the five of them are likely to ascend to lead their Houses in the midst of the war, it will be Claude and Lysithea, even though Lysithea does not intend to keep her House as a House for much longer. 

She stares back at Claude and narrows her eyes at him until he looks away. 

Oswald proposes a strategic political neutrality but promises both Count Gloucester and Count Ordelia that they will have the force of Riegan’s armies should they choose to side against the Empire when the time comes. 

Lysithea crosses her arms. “Maybe they won’t come at all,” she says to the study of her peers. “The Empire’s enemy is the Church of Seiros, isn’t it?”

Lorenz scoffs. “You’re being idealistic if you assume Edelgard won’t conquer all of Fódlan in her efforts to stamp out the Church.”

“As much as I hate to admit it,” Claude says, “Lorenz is right. Edelgard’s ambitions don’t just end with the Church. Otherwise, there would be no war to begin with since Rhea disappeared to who knows where after the Battle for Garreg Mach.” 

“I’m not saying that she won’t come here,” Lysithea counters, “rather that maybe we can give her no reason to. Present a front of disarray and maybe they’ll go to the Kingdom first.”

Claude glances towards the door that leads to the Roundtable Conference. “Honestly, an ununified front is probably the most likely course of action, though definitely not intentionally.”

* * *

Lysithea tells her father her plan six months into the war. They’re in his study and she tells him that as soon as the war is over, she wants to wrap up their House’s affairs and dissolve House Ordelia entirely. He hugs her unexpectedly and tells her that he is proud of her and will support her in whatever she wants to do. 

She asks him to stand against the Empire and he says that they cannot. 

* * *

Whatever disarray the Alliance fronts during the first year is enough to keep the Empire away as Edelgard presses her troops into Kingdom territory. According to the limited news that they receive in Ordelia territory, Prince Dimitri is tried and executed by a supporter of Edelgard and the remains of the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus fall into disarray. 

Two weeks after Dimitri is pronounced dead, Claude’s grandfather dies.

* * *

The Golden Deer reunite in Derdriu for the funeral. Claude says a few short words followed by a longer, lengthier speech by Count Gloucester which is mostly making a mockery of the late Duke. Hilda’s father makes a much nicer speech about Oswald’s uniting leadership and then the formal ceremony is over. 

Claude stands above his grandfather’s grave alone and the other Deer stand back. Lysithea eventually tires of waiting and she steps forward until she stands next to Claude. 

“You have to keep going,” she tells him. 

Claude laughs faintly. “Ah, progress, my grandfather’s old enemy.” 

Hilda hooks an arm through Claude’s, standing on his other side, and she leans her shoulder against his arm. Lysithea realizes, belatedly, that she’s taller than Hilda now by a few centimetres. Claude squeezes Hilda’s arm back and Lysithea tentatively takes his other arm. 

Raphael is the next to join them, lumbering over in typical Raphael fashion, and he puts an arm around Lysithea that she, for once, does not shrug off. Ignatz follows Raphael and then Leonie comes too, dragging Lorenz and Marianne by their hands. They stand around Claude quietly for several minutes and the only sounds around them are the gentle crashing of waves in the background and their own breathing. 

* * *

Two years into the war, Lysithea gets some unexpected guests on her doorstep. A contingent of Knights of Seiros, including Catherine, Shamir, Alois and Cyril, appears basically out of the blue, chasing leads on the still missing Rhea. Lysithea stares at the injured, exhausted group of Knights on her doorstep, but she knows that she can’t shelter them. 

Ordelia is already being watched heavily by the Empire and she knows that she is standing on very thin ice. 

She closes the front door of Castle Ordelia and leaves them in the rain for five minutes before she slips out a side door and ushers them into her family’s stable. Shamir and Alois start organizing the wounded and exhausted soldiers so that everyone can get some sleep, and Lysithea hovers awkwardly, not quite sure what to say. 

Catherine stops in front of her and her eyes soften. “You’ve done more than enough for us, Lysithea,” she assures. 

Lysithea shakes her head and holds up her hands. “Who’s the most injured? I have some faith magic that I can use.”

Catherine studies her, shifting her weight to hide what Lysithea sees is a mostly healed wound on her leg. “If you insist, I’m sure Cyril and Alois wouldn’t turn down a touch of White Magic.” She scratches the side of her head, looking a little embarrassed. “As good of fighters as we are, we do seem to be lacking in the competent mage category.”

Lysithea smiles faintly at Catherine and turns to see Cyril propping himself against a crate, nursing an injured arm. She steps towards him and her shoes crunch over the wet hay below her feet. Ordinarily, she hates the smell of stables, but it is the least she can do for the Knights of Seiros since she can’t actually put them up in her home. 

“Cyril,” she says softly. 

His head snaps up and Lysithea immediately notices that his face is leaner and less childish. He looks exhausted and she’s moving her wrist through the motion of Heal before she even realizes fully that she’s doing it. The spell sinks into him and his shoulders relax a bit at the relief it affords him. 

“Thanks, Lysithea. I appreciate that.”

She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and nods. “How’s the writing going?” she blurts out before the conversation lapses into complete nothingness.

He shrugs. “Not a lot of opportunities to practice, but Shamir’s been helping me out so I’m better than I used to be.”

She nods. “That’s good.”

She is about to turn and walk away when he continues, “You didn’t have to let us stay.”

She turns back to him and folds her arms, frowning. “My parents may be content with getting walked over by the Empire, but I am not.” She glances around at the beat-down contingent of Knights. “I guess you haven’t had any luck, have you?"

Cyril’s gaze drops and pain flickers across her face. Lysithea feels for a moment like she overstepped, but then he runs a hand through his hair and shakes his head.

“No, nothing yet,” he says quietly. He looks back up at her and his brow knits. “And you’re doing okay?”

She puts a hand on her hip. “Why wouldn’t I be?” she says sharply, a bit defensive. She had hoped that she had been hiding her tiredness and the shakes in her hands well enough that they aren’t easily noticeable. 

Cyril blinks, taken aback by her defensive tone. “Just checking,” he says and Lysithea feels guilty all over again. 

“Sorry, I’m just a bit tense,” she mumbles, dropping her hand back to her side. 

Cyril nods slowly. “I think we all are.”

* * *

Time passes weirdly. At times it rushes past like sand through an hourglass while other times it slows to a crawl. News of a fracture continues to spread across the Leicester Alliance as Lorenz’s father submits to the Empire and Claude ascends in House Riegan to oppose him. 

Count Gloucester sends forces to House Ordelia, led by Lorenz and the only reason Lysithea doesn’t drive them out herself is because Lorenz apologizes for his father’s behaviour. He keeps his troops under control through the negotiations with her father, but then her father caves and Lysithea shuts herself in the library, angry, but not surprised. 

She is staring at a Black Magic tome, trying and failing to read it, when Lorenz finally finds her. His hair is longer and less stupid looking and he has the same war-weary edges that all of them seem to be developing. 

“Lysithea,” he begins. 

“Get out of my home, Lorenz. Take your men and go,” she says firmly, not even looking up. 

He hesitates in the doorway of the library. “This was not my idea. I told my father that there were better ways than force to approach your House.”

“But you did not stand against him when he welcomed the Empire over the Bridge of Myrddin in the first place,” she points out.

She watches guilt flicker across his face but he quickly smooths it over in favour of his usual noble snobbery. She bites her lip and pointedly looks away, turning a page in her book to a more complicated fire spell. 

“I do not wish to fight my friends any more than you do, Lysithea,” Lorenz excuses. “Ferdinand was amongst the Imperial convoy that came knocking at our border.”

“He chose the Empire, Lorenz,” she counters. “He has made his choice and you should have made yours.”

Lorenz approaches her, his armour clicking as it shifts. She finally looks up when his tall shadow looms over her table. She keeps her lips pressed into a firm line of distaste but she does not move away. He can make his case. 

“You told me once that your body was not built to last,” he says. “You said that noble life was a burden on your family.”

She folds her arms. “I did,” she agrees. “And my situation has not changed. I still intend to dissolve House Ordelia as soon as our affairs are in order and this war is over.”

Lorenz’s eyes cloud with something that Lysithea thinks might actually be genuine sadness. “I guess it was foolish of me to hope that these years might have given you something to cling to. I don’t pretend to know what you went through, Lysithea, but I wanted to tell you that this visit was the compromise I made with my father to protect your home from an outright invasion.”

She is not surprised by this piece of information. She is certain that the Empire would have been happy to subjugate her House as payback for what happened previously and she knows that Count Gloucester is always for anything that gives him more power. 

“I am sorry,” Lorenz continues. 

She looks away. “It’s a war, Lorenz. There is no time for apologies."

* * *

After the Empire arrives in Ordelia, Lysithea does not make a fuss. She ignores her father’s attempts to encourage her to join strategy meetings and pens letters to Hilda and Claude and tells them everything that she overhears. 

Two months later, Claude invites her to Derdriu. When she asks him the reason, he simply tells her that it’s a little early for the five-year reunion, but that he would love to see her again. 

She writes her father a letter and leaves the next day with a battalion of mages. 

* * *

The Golden Deer congregate in Derdriu. Ignatz and Raphael come around shortly after Lysithea does and Hilda and Marianne had already been there. Leonie shows up a few months later, bloodied and tired, but still with her usual pep and Lysithea will never admit it, but she treasures the hug she gets from her older friend. 

Lorenz is the last to join them, but he does come eventually. After four years of war, he rides into Derdriu, supposedly there to negotiate with Claude. He rides with Marianne daily and takes tea with Ignatz and spars with Leonie and even sits with Lysithea in the Riegan Manor’s large library, but he and Claude do not speak of the war. 

Hilda teaches Lysithea about the finer points of makeup and even hand sews her a beautiful veil with such tiny, precise gold stitches that Lysithea can barely believe they were done by Hilda. She, in turn, does not flaunt her newly gained height over Hilda who officially inherits Lysithea’s previous mantle as the smallest of the Golden Deer. 

Ignatz sketches her one day and Lysithea apologizes for snapping at him as she had done in the past. His smile is more confident now and she knows that they have both grown in the time that they have been apart. 

Raphael is still the same as always but Lysithea can only hope that his infectious joy does not waver. They will need him. 

Marianne is like a whole different person. She can actually look Lysithea in the eye now and she even accepts Lysithea’s offer to work on their White Magic together. With Marianne’s help, she gets stronger and the first time an Abraxas spell doesn’t fizzle at her fingertips, Lysithea gives a giddy laugh and Marianne gives her a real, almost confident smile. 

Claude is busier than most of them as the only one of them that is managing his whole territory and the contentious relationships amongst Alliance Houses, but he still tries to make time for them. Lysithea brings him tea one evening mostly because she’s curious as to what had kept him locked in his study all day and finds him face down on his desk, fast asleep. 

She leaves the teacup next to him on the desk and is about to leave when she sees the rough pencil sketch he had been looking at before he fell asleep. It is a portrait of the professor with one of her rare smiles pictured. It doesn’t have the soft lines of Ignatz’s work, so she realizes that he must have drawn it himself from memory. 

She closes the curtains in the study and leaves him to sleep.

* * *

The Millenium Festival seems to approach all too suddenly. Hilda and Marianne have already expressed interest in returning to the Monastery, at least to see what’s there. Raphael and Ignatz seem interested as well and Leonie promises that she’ll be there since she doesn’t break a promise. 

They are prepared to head out together, but five days before they’re set to leave, Hilda announces that Claude has already left, determined to follow a hunch he’s had like a mad man. Lysithea wonders if it has something to do with his sketch that she had found. 

She takes her time packing, taking essentials and lots of breaks upon Leonie’s insistence. Since coming to Derdriu, she has been less tired. It’s as if being here, being around her friends, lightens the ever-present weight hanging over her head. It’s only when she tucks her last book into her bag that she realizes. 

She had lived five years. She is twenty-one and she has no idea how to feel about that fact. 

When the war had started she had expected to live every day in constant fear that it would be her last, but she hadn’t. Now, with the promise of the reunion ahead of them, she wonders who else might come back too. 

Would the Knights be there? Would Caspar? Would Linhardt? Would the rest of their class?

She doesn’t know, but for the first time in five years, she feels the creeping feeling of excitement for something unknown. 

* * *

When the bandits are gone, she has time to catch her breath. She’s winded and dizzy and her hands are completely numb from the recoil of her Dark Magic. Raphael catches her before she can collapse and he carries her without a single word of judgement. 

She’s only half-awake when she feels the warm touch of White Magic and she opens her eyes to the eerie green eyes of Professor Byleth, perfectly preserved in time like she hadn’t aged a day. 

By the look on Claude’s face, Lysithea knows that this is only the beginning. It’s time to stop running and hiding from the war. It’s time to stand up and fight it.


End file.
